Swimming: Balance, depth aid Raiders in win

A big indicator for how a high school swimming meet will go is the first event, the 200 medley relay. If one team can have its swimmers place first and second in the race, you can pretty much bet that team will win.

Placing first and second in that event shows your team has depth in all four strokes.

So, when Hastings swimmers placed first, second and third in the medley relay against White Bear Lake on Thursday, it was a pretty clear indication the Raiders were the superior team.

That held up throughout the meet, and Hastings cruised to an 89-79 win over the Bears.

"(Head coach) Katie (Roosen) let me write the lineup for Thursday night," assistant coach Gerry Rupp said. "My goal was to balance out all three relays and make a race among our teams. That's why we were so balanced in that first relay."

The top Hastings swimmers swam only in relay events, making room for some junior varsity swimmers to come up to varsity.

"Our goal was to involve as many of the junior varsity swimmers as possible in the varsity events, to give them an opportunity to score letter points," Rupp said. "They swam quite well. We were happy with how they swam. Our big guns, so to speak, swam relays only. So, it was left to the junior varsity kids to step up into varsity roles, and they did so quite nicely."

400 freestyle relay -- team of Kimmes, Waibel, Gjelhaug and Roesler, 3:56.35; team of Alitz, Wagner, Waibel and Reilly, 4:01.87; team of Gjelhaug, Ring, Frandrup and Wallace, 4:11.76; team of Fasbender, Nulty, Hogan and Devine, 5:23.59.